Hamilton wins Bahrain GP marred by horrific Grosjean opening lap crash; Verstappen P2, Albon elevated to P3 as late-race failure dooms Perez’s podium hopes

Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, one of Formula 1’s most seemingly anodyne races, provided a frightening reminder of the inherent risks of the sport when Romain Grosjean’s Haas speared off the track on the opening lap and hit an oblique-angle armco barrier head-on at nearly 140 mph, sending the cockpit area with the Frenchman through the barrier like a missile and tearing the rear completely off the car. That catastrophic structural failure also breached the fuel system, igniting the car on impact and engulfing Grosjean in a huge fireball. It was one of the most spectacular and horrifying crashes during an F1 race in probably decades but the constant advances in safety throughout that time ensured that the Frenchman survived the shunt with only relatively minor injuries. The halo device in particular appeared to have done the life-saving work it was designed for, protecting the driver not only from a serious head injury, as befell the late Jules Bianchi when he slid under a crane on track under yellow at a rainy Suzuka in 2014, but also miraculously keeping Grosjean conscious after impact and able to release his own belts to escape the inferno engulfing him within a little under 20 seconds. The first-lap medical car, which follows directly behind the pack on the opening lap for just such an incident and was the brainchild of the legendary Professor Sid Watkins back in the early ’90s, also did exemplary work, with Dr. Ian Roberts and driver Alan van der Merwe getting to the scene promptly and able to assist Grosjean’s escape and treat the shaken driver immediately. It might have been a different story had the halo device, as well as the now standard HANS device, not kept Grosjean conscious, as the safety personnel would have had to somehow extract him from within the fire. As it was, the fortunate Frenchman suffered only burns to his hands and is recovering in a nearby military hospital and in good spirits.

After that, the race itself mainly seemed an afterthought, with a very long Red Flag period delay to repair the barrier at Turn 6, which was designed at an angle for cars to skid off of not strike directly, offering drivers and the entire paddock far too long to watch replays of the horrific incident and consider the danger of their profession that all too often is minimized in this generally hyper-safe era of F1. But after over an hour stationary in the pits, the drivers did what they are paid to do, remounting their vehicles and getting back out to restart the race. It was only Lap 3 of this 57-lap contest and while Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton led Red Bull’s Max Verstappen from a second stationary grid start, the race one again came to an unceremonious halt when the Racing Point of Lance Stroll flipped over after contacting Daniil Kvyat’s AlphaTauri while contesting the same apex real estate at Turn 8. Kvyat’s car had also been the one that touched wheels when Grosjean cut across the track abruptly to send him into that lurid crash but the Russian was not at fault there. In the case of the Stroll incident, however, he was deemed to be the culprit and was levied a 10-second time penalty by the stewards. After a much quicker Safety Car period, the race restarted yet again on Lap 9 and Hamilton put his foot down and got on with the business of winning the Grand Prix.

Obviously it’s never easy driving a Formula 1 car, especially after witnessing such a traumatizing crash, but Hamilton blocked out all distractions and made it look that way, holding off Max Verstappen’s Red Bull handily throughout the remainder of the race and keeping it clean to take yet another win, his eleventh out of fifteen races this year, as well as extending his F1 record victory total to 95. With Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas having an off day after suffering an early puncture that essentially ruined his race, Verstappen gave yet another effort good enough for P2 but his car never really matched the pace of the lead Silver Arrow. Verstappen’s teammate, Alexander Albon, got a much needed bit of luck late in the race when the Racing Point of Sergio Perez, running comfortably in third and looking for his second successive podium, suffered what looked to be a turbo failure on Lap 54 and tumbled out of the points. That promoted Albon to P3 and the last spot on the podium, marking the first time this year both Red Bull’s had made it to the post-race champagne celebration, and perhaps taking Albon off the hot seat. With Bottas also finishing in eighth after his poor race, that elevated Verstappen to only 12 points behind the Finn for second in the Drivers’ Championship with only two races remaining. Bottas will now have to put his head down, regroup quickly for next week’s GP at this same Sakhir circuit and then do the business to hold off the hard charging Dutchman and stave off the ignominy of finishing third in this year’s most dominant chassis.

Further down the order, the rest pf the top 10 also benefitted from Perez’s heartbreaking late-race retirement, with the McLaren’s of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz making out particularly well by coming home P4 and P5 respectively. With both Stroll and Perez failing to finish for Racing Point, McLaren’s solid points haul on the day saw them elevated to P3 in the valuable Constructors’ Championship with a 12 point gap to now-P4 Racing Point. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly did well to make the most of a two-stop strategy, running an exceptionally long second stint and avoiding the drama that befell his teammate Kvyat to take a solid P6. The Renaults of Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon battled each other all race long and eventually would up sandwiching Bottas at the finish in P7 and P9 respectively. And perhaps the biggest beneficiary of Perez’s engine failure was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who snuck into the last points paying position at P10 with a car that was frankly terrible on anything less than the freshest rubber.

A final word about Grosjean’s accident: This exact type of impact with a stationary barrier is what killed Francois Cevert at Watkins Glenn in 1973 and Grosjean’s angle of entry would also probably have led to the same of cockpit intrusion that resulted in Jules Bianchi’s eventually fatal brain injury when he submarined that ill-placed crane in the rain in Japan. There can be no doubt that the halo saved Romain Grosjean’s life on this day in Bahrain. It may be “ugly” fro  an aesthetic perspective but it absolutely did its job in the Haas’s crash even if the cause of the fuel cells breach and ignition require further investigation. The debate over whether cockpit protection is really needed in open wheel/single seater racing is well and truly over and it needs to be mandated right down to the lowest professional levels of the sport. The safety of the drivers, famous and anonymous, demand nothing less.

Top 10 finishers of the Bahrain GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time — at this exact circuit for the Sakhir Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the delayed, abbreviated and very weird 2020 season. Look for some track safety improvements following Sunday’s incidents and hopefully a cleaner race by the drivers overall.